


It Doesn't Feel Pity

by NikauRifka



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Death, Death, Drabbles, Murder, Torture, and pretty much everyone dies at least once, everyone gets their turn to be fucked up, horror stories, just as jhonen wanted it to be, really why did I write this, seriously this is bad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22000627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikauRifka/pseuds/NikauRifka
Summary: "It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."A collection of spooky, bloody, and dark stories set in the Invader Zim universe
Comments: 35
Kudos: 31





	1. Medical Gown

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** for heavy gore, blood, trauma, mutilation, forced surgery, etcetera etcetera, and just general spookiness.
> 
> Proceed with caution, it's rated explicit for a reason.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skoodge and Dib have a long overdue chat about the direction the human has taken his life.
> 
> MAY CONTAIN: Blood, gore, past trauma including hinted at vivisections and experimentation, forced surgery, violence, and character death

The lab was cold and pungent, the scent of formaldehyde heavy in the stagnant air. Fluorescent lights flickered in the hallway, shining across sterile white walls, bleaching them even more colorless than they already were. Skoodge's antennae shifted underneath his wig - Zim's wig, actually. It was all he could manage to find. He tugged his lab coat closer around himself, a shiver running down his spine as he looked down the laboratory corridor.

Why was he doing this? There was no reason he had to be here, in this insufficient disguise and his fake human scientist uniform. He'd gotten it from the annually appearing Halloween store - the same place Zim had gotten one of his alternate disguises - and it had little red bloodstains along the bottom. He'd scouted the lab beforehand, attempting to steal an actual uniform for this long overdue self-employed mission of his, but of course none of them had fit. Humans tended to be much taller than he was, with thinner torsos and thicker arms.

As long as he wasn't scrutinized too closely, though, he would blend in like anyone else. Sure, his green skin stuck out like a sore thumb and he was the size of a 12-year-old, but it'd taken years for anyone to finally notice Zim. He'd be fine.

Unless, of course, _the Dib_ saw him. That boy was a pro when it came to singling the one who didn't belong out from the crowd. Just ask Zim, who'd learned firsthand of that skill and all the horrible little things that came with it.

No, not a boy, Skoodge reminded himself sternly. The Dib had grown immensely in the last ten years. He'd grown not just in height, but in intelligence, strength, and iniquity. As poor Zim had discovered - had spent the last two years discovering - there was nothing that human would not do.

Skoodge willed his legs to move down the narrow white hallway, the clicking of his boots echoing up and down it. He winced at the sound, seeming louder than it actually was because of the thick silence. Somehow, he preferred the slaughtering rat people over humans. The rat people had a sense of mercy.

So why was he here? He had absolutely no reason to be here. Dib had pledged to leave him be, so long as he gave no threat towards the planet he was stranded upon. So long as he never came _here._ He didn't owe Zim a damn thing. In fact, Zim was the one who owed _him_. That stacking debt was sure to double if they both made it out of here alive.

He read the plaques beside each door: West Observatory, Bimolecular Plant Life Studies, East Observatory, Theoretical Non-Carbon Based Lifeforms - Would Zim be kept in this one? Skoodge wasn't certain what Carbon was, but he didn't think he and Zim were made out of it.

He reached out to touch the silver handle, but drew back just before his gloved claws could scrape it. No, they wouldn't be keeping their only real alien specimen on the _first floor._ Humans may be insolent fools with meat for brain, but they weren't _that_ stupid. If the schematics Skoodge had hastily put together were correct, there would be an elevator just at the end of the hall. He finally stomached the rest of the way through the creepy hallway and reached a trembling claw up to push the elevator button.

With his external scans, he had not been able to identify if there were underground floors. His chances stated that there were, but then the question was, would they keep the more secure projects on the top floor, or in the basement? Would they keep _Zim_ on the top floor or the basement.

The elevator opened with a cheery ding that didn't quite fit with the creepy atmosphere. Skoodge looked over the panel of buttons inside.

There were fifty floors going up, and one floor going down. He smirked at the blue ring around the basement floor, different from all the rest. It had a tiny white lock icon beside it, identifying it as a room of strict access.

Guess that answered that question.

Skoodge pushed the button. The doors slid closed in front of him and a scanning device appeared beside it, a light gleaming out of it to scan his retinas.

Obviously, Skoodge was a trained irken invader. This wasn't his first heist. He'd conquered his planet before anyone else, after all. He just didn't brag nearly as much as some of the other irkens. _Most_ of the other irkens, really.

He activated his PAK effortlessly. A metal leg slipped out and over his head, and the tip projected a holographic image that took shape right where the light of the scanner was pointing. The staticky hologram light morphed into the shape of a single floating brown eye, the iris the color of honey. It looked real, like he could touch it, and he _could_ touch it, and it would feel like an actual, wet human eye.

The scanner closed as it hit the hovering image, disappearing into the wall again as the elevator speakers beeped in acceptance.

"Welcome, Dib Membrane," said a computerized voice. Skoodge scoffed at how easy it had been to fool the security system with the most basic of irken technology. How had Zim gotten caught again?

Then he paused suddenly as the elevator started dropping, eyes widening with realization.

The voice was strikingly familiar. Where had he heard that deep baritone from? With a jolt, Skoodge recognized it as the same voice of Zim's snarky old computer, which was long gone after his base had been raided then destroyed by the greedy Earthlings. Obviously this voice had no sentience core, but the sound was exactly the same, blandly reading primitively programmed script.

In some sort of twisted sense of nostalgia, the lead scientist of Membrane Labs must had dug up the vocal modulator to incorporate it into his own security system. Did he get some sort of sentimental value from the memories that came with that voice? Maybe the Dib Beast wasn't quite as much of a stoic, unfeeling monster as he seemed to be.

After what felt like a 12 story decent, the elevator dinged again as it settled, rattling as it came to the bottom floor.

"Do you wish to hear the specimen's current status before you enter?" The computer asked as the doors crept open.

"No, thanks," Skoodge said in sloppy English as he stepped into the foyer-like area outside of the elevator. He found the human's language strange, and it left an odd taste in his mouth. The elevator slid shut behind him, the metal locking together loudly. Skoodge jolted at the sound, but quickly composed himself. He couldn't afford to be jumpy.

He smoothed out his wig and took a deep breath before reading the plaque beside the door that stood in front of him.

"Specimen A: Irken," it read, the light glinting off of it at just the right angle to show off the two parallel scratch marks that marred the metal.

Skoodge chuckled quietly. Of course there would be an entire floor just for Zim.

Skoodge stepped up to the new door, sighing as he expected to have to scan something again. It was so like humans to have more than one safety checkpoint, but at least they accepted their flaws in their security and _attempted_ to make up for it.

But the door slid open for him easily and unprompted as it sensed his presence, and the comforting, sweet scent of another living irken was released into the air, seeping beneath his wig to meet his antennae. They twitched at the familiarity.

Of course, Skoodge had holographic images of all parts of the human, inside and out, just in case. No one could say he hadn't come prepared.

The next room was dark, but Skoodge could sense it was large from the way his footfalls echoed around him. He activated the night vision within his ocular implants and looked around as things appeared in eery grayscale.

Giant tubes of all sorts lined one wall, some empty and open, others filled with viscous, dark fluids. They each had labels, and neat little Manila folders stacked beside them, but after catching a glimpse of the words "hydro testing" on one of the tubes, Skoodge didn't want to read any further.

The opposite wall was lined with counters and cabinets, one end tall and glass and refrigerated and full of what appeared to be samples of some sort (Blood? Brain matter? Other vital fluids?), the other side peeling linoleum countertops littered with a whole assortment of contraptions, both human and irken in nature. On the edge of the counter was a metal tray, with knives and tweezers and pins scattered across it.

In the very center of the room was a metal table, equipped with metal restraints and a curved indent on the surface in the general shape of a PAK. The metal was marred with a dark smeared substance. Skoodge didn't need to see the color to identify it as blood. And from the scent of it, he could tell it was Zim's.

Scattered all around were doors leading to other rooms - assumably storage areas - but Skoodge didn't need to go searching through all of those, because at the end of the large room, right there in front of him, was a glass enclosure, just barely large enough for an irken his size to be able to lie down comfortably in. The floor within the enclosure was littered with pillows and blankets and old candy wrappers and strewn, bloodstained gauze.

And then there was Zim, gazing up at him with wide eyes from behind the glass, clutching a pillow to his chest. He mouthed something slowly, looking pained as he did so. Skoodge tilted his head, straining to hear.

"What was that?" He asked softly.

Zim closed his mouth and frowned tightly. He pointed up and to the left of him. Skoodge followed his claw, noting with a cringe that it had been filed down to the bone, and found he was pointing at the glass door of the enclosure, bolted and locked with dark metal all wired up to a single keypad.

"Don't worry, Zim," Skoodge whispered, pressing his hand against the glass. Zim did the same on the other side. He looked frustrated, fearful, and so, so defeated. Skoodge hadn't ever thought there was a single thing in this universe that could make Zim look that way, yet there he was.

Skoodge inspected the keypad that controlled the lock. Ten blue glowing numbers lit up the black metal. Not too many options, right? He extended a PAK leg, beginning to scan for fingerprints. Maybe he could at least narrow down which numbers were used, then settle out the order later. Or, if it had to come down to it, he could just blast through the door in and of itself. Human materials tended to be pretty vulnerable to lasers and explosions. That had to be a last resort, though. His plans relied on then escaping unnoticed.

He felt around the door, searching for a weak point, testing all of his options. Then the lights flickered on, alighting the room in a bleached white aura. There were pink stains everywhere, from dried splatters on the floor to handprints on the glass, and Skoodge had to swallow down the bile that rose up his throat before it could come spewing out his mouth.

"I thought it was quite strange when my computer told me I was already down here."

Skoodge stilled, PAK leg still hovering in the air. His breath fogged on the glass as his body reused to move. Zim looked over at him frantically. So much for escaping unnoticed.

"Come on, Skoodge, it's just me," Dib said with a chuckle. Skoodge felt him step up behind him. He smelled like salt and rubbing alcohol; he smelled like human.

Skoodge found it in himself to turn around. When he did, he was met with the coat-clad abdomen of the human his smeethood companion had once dubbed nemesis. He looked up.

The last time he'd seen this creature had been two years ago. He hadn't changed much since then. He was still just as tall, with his same old long black hair and round wireframe glasses. He still had that wild look in his eyes, like something in him wasn't quite wired right.

He remembered back when Zim attended the human school. The other children had always called the boy names, had always thought he spouted nothing but delusions out of his mouth.

This wasn't that. This ineffable monster that had grown inside of him was a direct result of Zim's presence on Earth and nothing else. It was pure, unadulterated hatred, and it was the only reason Skoodge was not stuck behind that same glass wall as well.

"So," Dib clicked. He put his hands on his hips and leaned his weight on one leg casually. "You're here for Zim I suppose. Even though I told you to stay away. Not that you irkens ever listen."

"What have you done to him?" Skoodge asked in a small voice. He fiddled with his claws as he backed up as far as he could go. He knew he shouldn't have been so frightened, he was a skilled invader after all. He'd conquered _Blorch_ and hardly batted an eye. But something about the vast amount of irken blood that covered the place struck something deep within the invader, and he felt his deeply suppressed primitive instincts start to kick in.

Dib rolled his eyes and gestured for Skoodge to step aside. When he didn't, he simply put a hand on the side of his head and pushed him to the side. That seemed to snap him out of his frozen trance, because the moment the human's tan skin connected with Skoodge's, the pudgy irken jumped and scampered back until his PAK knocked up against a counter.

He watched with wide, alert, contact-covered eyes as Dib pressed in the code for the door, then scanned his hand after the keypad flipped over to a tablet-sized screen. The metal unlocked with a hiss and the glass door slid open.

Dib reached his hand out, and Skoodge gawked as he watched three drastically shortened fingers curl around the human's palm.

"Come on, Zim," Dib cooed softly, and the tiny irken stumbled out of the enclosure on thin, unsteady legs.

Zim practically leaned on Dib like he couldn't stand up straight on his own, clawless hand moving from the scientist's palm up to his lower arm. His eyes remained tightly locked onto Skoodge's.

"Zim," Skoodge said, voice hoarse as he found it in him to speak. He moved toward his fellow invader. He extended his arm slowly, lightly brushing his claws against Zim's cheek. Zim hardly flinched, just staring at Skoodge like he were trying to deliver a message to him telepathically.

"Zim?" Skoodge repeated, pleading quietly.

Zim's antennae hung loosely behind himself. His fingers clenched tightly around Dib's sleeve, but without his claws it caused the human no pain. He looked understandably upset, angry like he wanted to scream, tense like he couldn't hold it back. He bared his teeth but made no sound.

Skoodge blinked. Could this quiet, nervous irken really be Zim? Could it really be an _irken?_

"Why isn't he talking?" Skoodge asked frantically, eyes darting from Zim to Dib to Zim and back to Dib again.

"I cut his vocal cords," Dib said like he didn't find it nearly as horrifying as Skoodge did, "I was satisfied with the amount of information he'd given me. But mostly, I just got tired of him screaming."

"You cut his vocal cords?" Skoodge squeaked, looking back down at Zim. Zim's anger was gone as Dib delivered what he'd been wanting to say. His gaze drifted to the floor, he leaned his head against Dib's arm like it were a comfort.

"Well, not me specifically," Dib clarified with a jovial laugh, like this was a civil situation and he was telling some funny anecdote to his friends, "I ordered one of my scientists to do it. Isn't that a crazy thing to say? _I ordered_ one of _my_ _scientists_ to _cut Zim's_ vocal cords. That's just crazy. That feels like a thing I've wanted to be able to say for _years_."

Zim's eye twitched as the human spoke. His hand clenched even tighter, until the fabric of Dib's lab coat was bunched around his fingers.

"Hey," Dib said with a frown, looking down at the irken leaning against him. He peeled Zim's fingers off of him with his other hand, "Zim, _gentle_. You don't exactly have any claw left to cut, you know."

Zim practically jumped off of him, stumbling to the side in a drastic response. He clung against the side of the glass enclosure instead. He breathed heavily like he were spooked, folding in on himself as he pressed himself to the wall.

Skoodge shook his head frantically, stumbling backwards again. He couldn't believe this. He felt sick. "And I thought _irkens_ were cruel," he gasped, grabbing a fistful of his fake hair.

"Irkens _are_ cruel," Dib bit, reaching out to grab Zim by the arm, yanking him back towards him. "That's _why he's here._ "

"Not like this!" Skoodge shouted, finally getting his voice to work with him. Something clicked inside him as he watched Zim's eyes screw shut and his antennae quiver behind him. Skoodge looked up at Dib with anger in his eyes, completely determined that he would not allow his fellow invader to stay here for one more night.

"You kill, you pillage, you _e_ _nslave_ ," Dib argued boredly, "Don't even try to tell me you don't experiment on your prisoners. I _know_ you do. I've _been one before_."

"Yes, we do do all of those things," Skoodge growled, "But you're still here, unaffected by any of those experiments Zim did on you. Am I wrong?"

Dib glowered down at the short invader. He still had his grip around Zim's arm, but Zim had gone limp, his antennae hanging in front of himself as he stared at the floor.  
  
Skoodge glanced at him only shortly before he was looking back up at Dib. "When we kill we actually _kill_. We don't revert our enemies into..." He waved his hand, searching for the best words, "Maimed, quivering messes. I mean look at him!" He threw his arm in Zim's direction. Zim remained as he was. "That's not the Zim I know, and it's certainly not the one you hate."

"That's exactly the point!" Dib barked. The human looked down at the specimen in his grasp, and Skoodge caught something flash across his eyes. 

"That's what makes you worse than irkens," Skoodge huffed, his claws clenching and unclenching at his side, "We kill fully and completely. We don't just kill who they are. That's the worst possible thing you can do to an enemy. The races we enslave, and the ones we use as test subjects... They're long dead before their spirits are broken."

"How is that any better than letting him live?" Dib hissed, glaring at the intruder.

Skoodge frowned, his brow knitting as he cocked his head. He made a tired gesture towards Zim. "Is he really alive?"

Dib was silenced at that. He released Zim's arm and stood up straighter. Zim relaxed slightly, then moved to assume his prior position of leaning against the scientist.

"Are you saying I should kill Zim?" Dib eventually asked.

"I'm sure he would appreciate it," Skoodge shrugged. Zim didn't look like he disagreed.

The room was silent for a moment, the only sound the soft whirr of machinery behind the walls and the crackling of the fluorescent lights. Skoodge locked eyes with Zim, and Zim just shrugged exhaustedly.

Then Dib snorted, the sound echoing through the laboratory. "I'm not going to _kill_ Zim," he said like it were ridiculous, punctuating with a hysteric laugh. "I don't care about your species' fucked up idea of morals. _I_ am better than you. _I_ am the humane one. Not you. And besides," he huffed, straightening out the cuffs on his white coat, "He's a valuable test subject, the only alien humanity has ever _seen_."

Skoodge narrowed his eyes at the human. He prepared to extend his PAK legs, ready to initiate a fight, one he was certain the human would not make out of alive. But the next words made him freeze in his tracks.

"Well, until they see you, that is," Dib smirked, looking down hungrily at the alien.

Zim's antennae shot backwards and he stood on his own. He caught Skoodge's eye, his own pink orbs wide and fearful as he mouthed the word ' _run_.'

And because it wasn't any other human, and because Skoodge _knew_ that Dib was a monster, and that he had somehow caught and contained Zim, and that Zim would never have warned Skoodge if it had been any other situation, Skoodge did exactly that just as Dib fired off a strange looking handgun right where the stout invader had been standing moments before.

The blast collided with the cabinet behind, warping the wood into itself grotesquely. Skoodge cringed, rising up nimbly on his PAK legs. He looked towards the door he'd come in through, knowing he couldn't stay.

But Skoodge was not leaving without Zim.

He fired his own blast out of his PAK leg just as Dib turned to re-aim. It ripped past the human's shoulder as he dodged. He cried out and clutched his torn flesh, stumbling forward. Skoodge aimed again.

"Irkens can have mercy, too," Skoodge growled, glaring at the scientist from his acquired height on his mechanical limbs. Then his face softened, but his glowing, powered PAK leg remained aimed stiffly at the human's chest. "Just let me take Zim. You'll never see us again, I swear on my Tallest."

"I can't," Dib said slowly, enunciating every consonant.

"You got your fame," Skoodge pleaded, gesturing vaguely at the tall building they were within, "He's done being your science fair project! We both know he's only here because you're desperate for the attention he brings you, but you're not a smeet anymore, so stop acting like it. In case you haven't noticed, you're a billionaire scientist ten times as famous as your parental unit had been."

Dib just blinked at him blankly.

"Just let him go and I won't kill you!" Skoodge shouted, fists clenched and shaking at his sides.

"You guys don't even like him," Dib said tightly.

"I do," Skoodge growled, "I like Zim."

Dib just sighed and shook his head. He looked to have no fear of the deadly weapon pointed at him. Slowly, he raised his own gun, clutched tightly in one hand.

Before Skoodge had any second to react, he fired. The blast collided with the invader hard, knocking him back and tumbling off of his mechanical spider legs. They retreated backing into his PAK, and as Skoodge started to recover, he realized with panic that he was unable to draw them back out again.

Dib was on him quickly after, jabbing a knee into his spooch and pinning his arms against his chest. Skoodge struggled, trying to kick and claw the human off of him, but without his PAK he was hardly a match for the larger human. Skoodge caught a glimpse of a new weapon, thin and sharp and headed for his neck, but before he felt the pain of it, the entire weight of the human was gone and Skoodge was left lying on the floor and reeling.

After a moment of shocked stillness, he jolted back up and jumped to his feet ready to fight again, but he didn't have to. In front of him was Zim, attacking Dib with fervent violence. He sat straddling the human's chest, a pair of long, silver tweezers in his hand, the tips aimed right above the human's face. Skoodge recognized Zim's own dried blood on the prongs of the tool.

Dib gripped Zim's hands with his own, his knuckles turning white as he used his entire strength to keep the sharp object from plunging directly into his eye.

"Zim," Dib gasped, panting with the effort of holding the tiny irken back. "Zim, come on," he pleaded, eyes wide with honey-colored fear, "Be good and I'll give you extra snacks this week. Sounds good, right? No? Um, how about both the extra snacks and I'll let you use a sedative for the next test. That's good, right? Zim...?"

Zim opened his mouth and a sound croaked out, quiet and breathy and hardly a word. He did it again, and the sound slowly morphed into something coherent.

"I'm done being your science fair project," he managed, whisper quiet as Dib's grip slipped and the tweezers drove home.

Zim didn't flinch as dark, thick human blood sprayed up at him. Dib screamed, his entire body spasming, so Zim pulled the tweezers out and plunged them in again. And again. And again.

A ragged, cry-like scream came from him, breathy and quiet and hardly a sound at all, but somehow it perfectly encapsulated his rage as he repeatedly jammed the medical tool hard into his childhood rival's bloody eye socket.

Skoodge watched in horror as the once monstrous human scientist's face was reduced to a sticky, bloody mess of flesh and bone. Zim kept stabbing, kept screaming despite his missing vocal cords. His face was splattered with Dib's brain matter. 

Skoodge approached him slowly, lightly setting his claws on his shoulder. Zim's attacks slowed until he was holding his weapon stuck deep in the human's face, shivering and quaking and wheezing. Skoodge guided him off of the human, half-carrying him so they were a good few feet from the gore-strewn perimeter.

Zim continued his wheezy whimpering, his hands clasped together like he were still holding the tweezers. Skoodge wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close, ignoring the human vital fluids that covered him. Zim hooked his chin over Skoodge's shoulder, frozen and shaking and staring dead ahead at nothing at all.

"It's okay," Skoodge squeaked, brushing back Zim's antennae, "It's okay."

It was effortless as they left Membrane Labs. Not a soul attempted to stop them as they padded out the front doors and down the dark sidewalk, cold from the early morning air.

"You came back for me," Zim told him like he didn't know. His voice was raspy and pitchless, it seemed more likely he was just forming words off of the air passing through his mouth.

"Yeah," Skoodge agreed, matching Zim's whisper, "Of course I did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I write this? Is it significantly more fucked than anything else I've ever written? Is this the product of binge watching horror shows for five weeks straight? All good questions. Stay tuned next week and maybe you'll find out the answers.
> 
> (Disclaimer: you won't)


	2. Request Info

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a chapter

So some of y'all wanted to make requests for this, which I'm excited about because I'm not very good at coming up with horror plots. Just writing them. Anyway here's a bit of info to know if you want to send in a request.

**Things I won't do**

  * Anything sexual
  * Irken x kid ships
  * Anything that causes Skoodge physical pain



**Things I love to do**

  * Minor irken characters
  * Zasr
  * zadf
  * Based off actual horror movies/shows
  * Gashloog



You can send in your requests in the comments of this chapter or send me a message on [tumblr](https://arboribus.tumblr.com). Feel free to send in more than one!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zim and Larb find themselves in a sticky situation.
> 
> MAY CONTAIN: Predator/Prey dynamics (not in a sexy way), scary monsters who want to eat you, and acid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a request. I've always wanted to write something with Zim and Larb but I've never had the right excuse. So I just jammed it in here anyway because I can and Larb is cute
> 
> They're ooc cause they're scared I promise.

"That's funny," a tiny little green skinned alien clicked in a language that was not English. He absolutely did not sound like he found it funny. He scratched his cheek and looked around the pink woods that stood around him. "They said the meeting room would be right here."

"I should have known you'd get the coordinates wrong," another alien, only slightly smaller than the first, hissed at his companion. He folded his arms over each other and frowned angrily at the assortment of plants that surrounded him.

"I didn't get the coordinates wrong," the first one argued, "This is exactly where those tallers told us to meet. But there's no building here."

"Well that's dumb," the smaller one jeered, subtly moving slightly closer to the other because he didn't like the way it felt to be in such deep dangerous wilderness. He would never admit it, but he felt like a rabbit outside the wolves' den. Not that he understood that simile yet anyway. "Why would they have a meeting outside?"

"I think they gave us the wrong coordinates on _purpose_ , Zim," the taller one spelled out with a sigh.

"Why would they do that?" Zim asked obliviously. The other just huffed and pushed a purple branch out of his face.

"Because we're short," he explained, "It happens all the time."

Zim looked at him like he'd just confessed to first degree murder. The other ignored his gaze and started pushing his way through the thick brush.

"Larb," Zim said with a frown, staying tight in his previous position and trying to hide the panic in his voice, "Where are you going?"

"Back, obviously," Larb told him without stopping, "We're in the neck of Irken wilderness. We won't survive a second out here like this."

Zim remained frozen in place, legs locked to the forest floor and antennae on high alert like he were expecting an ambush.

Larb eventually stopped and turned his head when he realized Zim was not behind him. "You coming?" He called irritably, "I'm not gonna wait for you."

Like something had suddenly clicked, Zim jolted forward and raced to catch up with his companion.

"Why would they give us the wrong coordinates?" Zim asked again after he finally recovered from his all-encompassing fear that, if anyone were to ask, had absolutely never happened. Of course he hadn't been _scared_. The great and powerful Zim didn't get scared. He was just... Prepared. Yes, that was it. The forest held many dangers, and he had been preparing for them. Bracing, in a sense.

"I told you," Larb said irritatedly, voice nearly drowned out by the rustle of leaves, "We're short."

"But this is an important meeting!" Zim shouted with alarm, looking something like a cat with its fur sticking straight up, "It requires our presence as some of Operation Impending Doom's most important invaders!"

"I don't think there was a meeting at all, Zim," Larb explained tiredly, like Zim's voice exhausted him. Really, he was just as on edge, hurt, and frightened as Zim was, but Larb had a sort of acceptance of the cruelty of reality that Zim didn't, and he didn't have to fill his mind with denial just to get himself through the day. If he thought about it, he felt bad for Zim, whose life was so awful that he had to muddle the very water that was his fragile grasp on reality, permanently causing himself to see only what he wanted to see, to believe only what he wanted to be the truth.

But Larb didn't usually think about it.

"I think they just made it up so they could fool us into coming all the way out here," he finished.

"Zim is no fool!" the smaller irken hissed, using white-hot anger to hide the way he was constantly looking over his shoulder.

Larb paused just for a moment to look back at the smaller invader. He sighed and said, "I didn't say you were."

It took what felt like hours - but according to the pair's PAK readings it had only been 45 minutes - for the two to finally break from the heavy brush and emerge into a large, pink clearing. Larb paused abruptly and looked around. Zim failed to pay the proper attention and slammed directly into his back when he stopped.

"Watch it," Larb warned in a harsh whisper, but there was no real venom to his words. He looked around like he were searching for something, antennae twitching fervently above him. Zim followed suit, scanning the area for predators.

After a moment, Larb turned to him.

"Okay," he began, looking nervous, "So either we can wrap around the field and go through the trees, eliminating the risk of becoming easy prey for whatever could be waiting out around here."

"Or we could go right through it," Zim finished for him, "We don't have the time to go around it. That could take hours, and we don't want to be out here at night."

Larb nodded forlornly. He swallowed audibly and released a shaky breath. He turned back towards the open field, raising his foot to take a step in.

He felt a tug at his arm, and turned to see Zim had wrapped his claws around it, squeezing tightly as he bit his lip and stared at the ground. He slowly raised his head and made eye contact. A shaky grin drew onto his face.

"This is just so, um-" Zim stammered, "They say to stay close so the, um, predators think you're bigger."

Larb returned him with a sharp nod.

"We'll be fine," Zim said confidently, as if Larb couldn't quite literally feel him quivering, "We're invaders. We're trained for this stuff."

"Right," Larb nodded faster than he needed to, "Of course."

They stepped away from the tree line, squished together like a couple in a haunted house as they moved forward, both on high alert, twisting their antennae every which way and jumping at every sound including their own footfalls.

"See, this is fine," Larb said, as if Zim had been the only one refusing to go forward, "Nothing to worry about."

"Yeah," Zim said in what seemed to be a breathy attempt at his usual arrogance. He nodded, forcing a toothy snarl. "Yeah, easy as pie. I can't believe you were _scared_."

" _You_ were scared!" Larb argued indignantly, "I was telling _you_ it was okay."

" _Suuuure_ ," Zim rolled his eyes, "Sure you were."

Neither said a word about the grasp Zim still held on the other irken's arm, or about Larb's hand that was squeezing Zim's shoulder in a death grip. They never would say a word about it either.

They treaded through the field, watching the tree line rather than their steps, so when Larb tripped and went down hard, and Zim being right beside him instinctively grabbed at the taller invader, only to stumble on the same thing the other had, neither noticed what it was they were crashing down on top of until they were already upon it.

Zim yelped, attempting to push himself back to his feet. When he found himself unable to, he tried to push away from where he was pressed up against Larb's side. That, also, proved to be fruitless. He got mere centimeters from the other irken before he was snapped back to his shoulder like he were wrapped up in an elastic band.

A panic hit him, and he stilled, his eyes widening and his face going pale. Then he started struggling, pulling frantically, twisting this way and that, yet never achieving more than an inch of distance for only a few seconds. The more he struggled, the tighter everything felt.

"Zim!" Larb yelled, panic blatant in his voice, "Zim, stop! You're only making it worse!"

Because he'd just found that out himself, Zim did as the other implored, leaning against his side helplessly as he hyperventilated. He wasn't scared. No, he was just... Oh flirk it, he was absolutely _terrified_. There was nothing scarier than the untamable Irken wilderness, and now here they were trapped in the middle of it as the tiny pink sun began to settle closer to the tree line.

Larb assessed the situation calmly. Or rather, what he hoped appeared to be calmly, because he felt anything _but_ calm.

They sat side by side in the center of the spread pedals of a giant carnivorous flower. Both of their newly minted invader uniforms were covered in a sticky, bluish goo, thick and stretchy and seeming unbreakable. And the more they fought it, the more it squeezed around them until they were having trouble taking breaths. Larb watched in horror as the simple rise and fall of Zim's chest caused their viscous restraints to constrict even tighter.

"I don't have any data in my PAK on this thing," Larb said with a frown. He wanted to scream and yank himself free of this mess, run as fast as he could to the other end of the field and not stop until his feet were against the solid metal of civilization again. He wondered silently if he would even think about Zim the moment he got back.

"I do," Zim gasped, still taking large, gulping breaths. He screwed his eyes shut and recited information. "It's called _kiiehz_. Carnivorous plant. Feeds on absolutely anything that falls into its trap. It opens in the morning, blends in with the ground and waits. It closes at night to digest whatever it might have caught."

Larb looked at him, puzzled. "How'd you know that?" He asked, slightly relieved. They had at least until nightfall to figure this out.

"You think this is the first time I've found myself stranded in the middle of Irken wilderness?" Zim snapped, "I've done my research."

"Right," Larb said with a nod. He wondered silently how Zim had been so confused over the fake meeting earlier considering how many times he'd probably been tricked in that exact manner, but he chose not to bring it up. He lifted an arm, revealing strings of the goop trying to pull it back down. "So what's this stuff then? Can we get it off?"

Larb heard Zim gulp and he knew the doom before he even answered.

"No," Zim said in a whisper, "We can't."

"There's got to be something we can do!" Larb shouted, his antennae pinning to the back of his head. He did not want to get _eaten_ by a _flower._ That was not how he wanted to go.

Zim closed his eyes tightly, his shoulders bunched up and high. He said nothing.

"Zim!" Larb yelled at the other's silence, jamming his shoulder into him. Zim yelped.

"I'm thinking!" he snarled, voice switching from scared and pitchy to cocky and gloating like someone had flipped a switch, "You really think the great and powerful Zim _isn't_ going to figure a way out of this? Of course not! I'll find a way out, because I am Zim. And I am amazing."

"This isn't the time for this, Zim!" Larb shrieked furiously, "Stop being a cocky piece of shit and let's think of something together."

Zim jolted. "What did you call me?" He asked slowly, antennae twitching backwards.

" _Help me_ so we both can make it out of this _alive_ ," Larb said insistently, breathing deeply to try and calm himself down.

Zim blinked his big raspberry eyes at him. "No," he said.

"What?! What do you mean no?!"

"I _mean,_ when I get out of this, I am _not_ helping _you._ "

"Fine!" Larb yelled, throwing his hands up in frustration. Or, he tried to. They only made it about an inch before snapping back to his sides against. "I won't help you, either, then!"

"Good!" Zim shrieked.

"Fine!" Larb yelled.

They both fell silent, turned away from each other as much as they possibly could in their current situation.

"Um," Zim eventually said with a cough, "Right."

It was quiet as the light around them started to slowly fade in luminosity. Night began to creep in slowly, announcing itself with a cold air.

"Larb," Zim eventually squeaked, shattering the silence and reminding them both of their eminent doom.

"Yeah?" Larb breathed, afraid that if he spoke too loud reality would catch up with him, and they didn't have long before the roaming predators emerged from their dens.

Zim hesitated long enough so that the dense silence once again settled in, only to be re-broken a moment after. "You're, uh... You know how to get us out of here, right?"

Larb was tempted to point out that they'd already declared that they wouldn't help each other, and that Zim had insisted he would be the one to figure the way out, but he just wasn't in the mood to be difficult. And Zim had used a tone in his voice that made it impossible to disappoint.

"Yeah," he assured, his voice awkwardly pitched, "Yeah, I'll get us out."

Zim nodded, and Larb could feel him relax against him. He looked down at the large magenta petal on the ground in front of him.

"You know," Zim sighed, "I've been in a similar situation before."

"But," Larb stammered, "How are you still alive then?"

"Just lucky I guess," he shrugged, leaving Larb completely aghast at the lack of 'the Incredible Zim!' type of response. "I was face to face with a graxes."

"Let me guess, you fought it off with your bare hands because you're amazing?" Larb sneered, feeling lightheaded. He'd rather die in silence.

"No," Zim said, again unexpectedly. Maybe something about knowing you're about to be slowly eaten alive really beat the self-denial out of a person. Or maybe Zim just wasn't as confident as he made himself out to be.

"I only survived because there was a bigger graxes who wanted to eat me, so the big one fought the smaller one and I ran away."

"Why was there even a graxes anyway? What were you doing in the middle of the woods?" Larb exclaimed, exasperated.

Zim just gave him a glare. "You know why," he growled.

Larb could certainly guess. But before he could say as much, he was cut off by a sudden tremble from the ground. The plant shook, lifting up and shifting until all the dirt that had settled on its leaves had been tossed off. Then once they were all clean, they started to rise, closing in on the irkens between them like the maw of a beast.

Zim fell closer to Larb than the translucent blue goo had already situated the two as the surface they sat on tilted inward. Larb had his teeth clenched, leaning back on Zim just the same as he felt himself wanting to cry. He closed his eyes as the petals rose around them, slowly cutting out the last of the light.

He'd expected to just close his eyes, ignore everything that was happening that he didn't like, exactly as he'd learned from Zim, but a terrified, pained scream ripped from the tiny invader's throat and tossed Larb out of his denial.

He snapped his head over to the irken beside him, jolting back as he watched a translucent blue liquid fill the enclosed space. It smudged up Zim's leg, burning through the fabric of his pants and disintegrating the green flesh beneath until clean pink bone could be seen.

The moment he saw it, he felt it, too.

The fluid was filling the area quickly, and everywhere it touched, it burned right through. Larb's own wailing voice accompanied Zim's in terror.

But they were modern day irkens, and problems like physical harm had been long since resolved. He tensed as his PAK whirred to life, watching as his skin quickly knit itself back together, then his black leggings regenerated themselves as well, covering back up his green calf.

The process was complete in nearly a second, but just as it finished, the plant's stomach acids ate at it again. Larb and Zim screamed in pain, writhing and crying in agony from where they still were glued together.

As their PAKs continued to regenerate their bodies, the acid continued to eat at their skin at the same pace. Neither the acid nor the PAK could outpace the other, and Larb realized this was exactly like what people said the graxes did. They'd eat the irken whole, digest them slowly enough that they would never quite fully die, all the way until the PAK finally gave out. It could last any amount of time, depending on how sturdy the PAK was to begin with. Larb was a fairly young irken, and he wasn't too keen on learning how long his own PAK could hold up.

The flower filled up with the blue fluid, eating and burning and rinse and repeat. He closed his eyes tight as it rose up to his neck, tilting his head back to keep his mouth above the surface. He just hoped it would be done quick.

He took a deep breath of stale, pungent air just as the acid rose to his mouth, then his eyes, then to just a few centimeters from his antennae.

Then he felt himself moving rapidly, but not of his own accord. He could breathe again and his body was stitching itself back together and it wasn't burning away again. He coughed and sputtered, pushing himself weakly to his hands and knees and spitting blood and acid onto wet grass. He fell back onto his side and gulped in air.

When he got his breathing under control, he risked opening his eyes.

He reeled to find himself staring at the starry night sky. He'd never seen it so bright from the planet before.

A quiet hiss and a groan brought his attention to the figure curled in on itself beside him. Zim's usual vibrant green skin was bloody and pink, and he clutched his antennae to his head as he shook violently. Larb wondered if he looked that bad as well, but realized that he was completely healed.

As he wondered why Zim's PAK wasn't healing him as quickly, Zim's all-encompassing burns began to slowly disappear as his green skin knitted itself back over the wounds until there was no proof of the encounter at all.

Larb realized Zim wouldn't have lasted more than a few minutes in there with a PAK that slow, the lucky bastard. But really, he should have known Zim wouldn't have died, Zim never died. He was safer being trapped in a giant carnivorous flower with Zim than he was with anyone else.

Larb propped himself up with a hand behind himself, watching as the tiny invader rose into a sitting position.

"What happened?" Larb asked tiredly.

"The stuff ate at the sticky goo," Zim explained in a way that made it seem like he was falling asleep, "Once it was off me I just blasted the thing apart with my PAK."

"Huh," Larb grunted, suddenly upset that Zim had been the one to figure that out. He'd been so caught up in wondering how long he had left that he hadn't even realized he'd been able to move his arms.

"I _told_ you I would get us out of there," Zim sneered.

"No you didn't!" Larb argued, "You specifically said you wouldn't help me! And _then_ you asked _me_ for help!"

Zim scrunched up his nose. "I don't think that's true," he said, sounding genuinely like he believed that. Larb opened his mouth to argue further, but his breath fell short as his exhaustion hit him.

"We should probably go," Zim eventually said, looking up towards the dark sky.

"Yeah," Larb agreed. He'd never come so close to death before, and he figured his own logic would set in at some point when the shock cleared up, but for now, he felt a little closer to the small invader everybody hated. He pushed to his feet, then extended an offering hand towards Zim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got this headcanons that irkens are prey animals, and their biggest fear is the wilderness. Because they're too afraid of it to deal with it, there's still small patches of wilderness on Irk. If you've read any of my other fics, you've heard of graxes
> 
> This wasn't quite as 'horror' as the rest of these chapters I guess. Personally, I find the idea of Irken wilderness to be fucking terrifying, but that's just me.


End file.
